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MLB News

Monday, April 8, 2013

Glass Half Empty / Afternoon Cloud: The way our local announcers, Busby and Tom, "TAG", Grieve, were talking during the first 5 innings you would have thought Ogando was getting beaten like a drum. In fact he only gave up 1 ER on 3 hits through 6.1 IP. Sometimes I have no idea what game they are watching. Frustrating to listen to announcers do that, much less our hometown guys. Usually it's the national broadcasters that do stuff like that. Oh, and the whole time Busby and TAG are bagging on Ogando they're praising the pitching of the Rays! The Rays, who at the time were losing the game 3-1 in a pitching duel! To Ogando! Again, frustrating.

Also, Ogando seemed to be on a short leash since Wash pulled him after 6.1 IP, with less than 90 pitches thrown, having given up only 3 hits and 1 ER. Sure, in the 6th he had 2 on with 1 out, but what happened to letting your pitchers pitch their way out of trouble? Wash?

Kins' poor awareness at times on the base pads reared its ugly head again, he got caught in no man's land in the first inning. This is a long running (pun intended) problem for Kins dating back to last season.

Kirkman is our setup guy? He came in with a 5-1 lead in the 8th. He started the 8th with 6 straight balls and eventually was pulled for Lowe, with the bases loaded and 1 out. Then Lowe walked in a run and gave up another run on a fielder's choice making it a much more tense 5-3 ballgame. This is an ongoing experiment/adventure. Maybe Joe Ortiz (see below) will/should get a shot at being the setup guy.Glass Half Full / Silver Lining: Beltre is starting to come out of a mini slump he was in to start off the season, driving in a first inning run.

Pierzynski and Moreland went yard back to back in the bottom of 4. Moreland went 3-3, staring to come out of his early season slump.

As mentioned above, Ogando was lifted for the young reliever Joe Ortiz with 2 on and 1 out in the 6th. Ortiz got out of the inning without giving up any runs. And Ortiz was perfect in 1.2 IP. At least one media-type has referenced that Ortiz reminds some of an Everyday Eddie Guardado-type pitcher, especially because of the way he carries himself on the mound. And not just because he has the same "body-type", is a lefty, a reliever, and has a Latino surname like Everyday Eddie. Everyday Eddie, Jr.?

Elvis drove in some insurance runs (2) in bottom of 7 to give the Rangers a 5-1 lead. The Rangers would need those runs given Kirkman and Lowe's adventures (see above) in the 8th.

Nathan pitched the 9th and after a bit of another adventure (and a terrible called 3rd strike for the final out), got the 300th save of his career. Impressive. (Correcting my last post, his last outing against the Halos was not a save opportunity). Thoughts / Observations / Sidenotes: Is it weird that a ball club's name is associated with a the body of water adjacent to a metropolitan area? I think so. Tampa, Flordia is a town. Tampa Bay is the body of water in the Gulf of Mexico next to the city. The Rays don't play in the bay. They play on land, in Tampa, Florida. The whole thing is very unstable. Of course the Rays learned it from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

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